What's the problem here? Well, a huge chunk of that demand is
expected to come, both directly or indirectly, from one country
in particular: China.

OPEC expects China to grow at an average of 7% between 2014-2020,
and over 5% between 2020-2040.

That rate of growth would see China rip past the US on purchasing
power parity terms to become the world's largest economy. As the
report states, on this forecast China's GDP will "considerably
exceed" each of the OECD regions by 2040.

The problem is that this forecast relies on China being able to
shrug off its current slowdown and rebalance its economy
relatively painlessly. These assumptions, however, are not shared
by many analysts of the region.

"The last time it was forecasting double-digit growth on a
five year horizon was 2009. Since then, the intermediate term
economic forecasts have been revised down steadily from close to
10% to now, around 6.5%," he writes. "I expect this pattern will
continue to reflect a) the secular fade in the leading edge role
in growth played by China’s real estate and construction sectors
and b) the inevitable slowdown, sooner or later, of credit
creation and debt accumulation. During Xi’s period in office,
which runs to 2022, I expect China’s GDP growth to slide to 4-5%,
and there may be periods when growth doesn’t even make it to this
level."

If that demand doesn't materialise then the cartel will
have a much more difficult time influencing global oil prices
that are crucial to its members' ability to plan economic policy.
Rather than China becoming more and more addicted to oil, it
seems that OPEC is increasingly an addict of Chinese
growth.